WATCH: U.S. Army veteran gives first-hand account of suffering, starvation in Gaza
Transcript: This is the YouTube auto-generated transcript but cleaned up by Google Gemini. Caveat Emptor.
Senator Van Hollen: Well, thank you for getting together. Let me start by thanking you for your service in the U.S. military. Maybe you can talk a little bit about your prior service. I also know you come from a military family.
Anthony Aguilar: I do. Yes, sir. So, I do come from a military family, and I ultimately made a decision to join the military. I attended the United States Military Academy at West Point. I was commissioned as an infantry officer.
Senator Van Hollen: Hmm.
Anthony Aguilar: Upon my commission, I immediately deployed to combat — Iraq the first time, Afghanistan, and many. So in my 25-year career, I have 12 combat deployments to places all over the world: Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the like. In 2008, I decided that I wanted to try out and join special forces. So I went to selection at Fort Bragg and I became a Green Beret. So, for the remaining part of my career, I was a U.S. Army Green Beret.
Senator Van Hollen: So you’ve seen a lot of combat.
Anthony Aguilar: Seen a lot of combat, sir.
Senator Van Hollen: And you mentioned a couple of places, Afghanistan. Where else?
Anthony Aguilar: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Tajikistan. I was also deployed to Operation Enduring Freedom in Southeast Asia, in the Philippines, fighting the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
Senator Van Hollen: Yeah. Yeah.
Anthony Aguilar: So, I was in the Philippines, also Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, and then other Central Asian countries. A small stint in Kazakhstan.
Senator Van Hollen: And then you signed up for this effort that they were saying was going to help feed people in Gaza. What made you decide you wanted to try to do that?
Anthony Aguilar: Well, sir, I had been familiar with the situation in Gaza. I had never been deployed to Israel or anything of that nature that was involved in it. But reading the news and keeping up with what was going on, and you know, the motto of Special Forces is “De oppresso liber”-—to free the oppressed. So that motto isn’t something that I just set to the side when I got out of the army. It’s something that I live by. And so I felt that, you know, people that are starving, that need food, that are hungry, that are dying—-that sounds like oppression to me, and I wanted to be a part of it.
Senator Van Hollen: Yeah. And so you became engaged in that, and then based on what you saw, you’ve decided to come forward and speak out. So why are you speaking out now?
Anthony Aguilar: So on the 14th of June, I terminated my contract. I made my reasons explicitly clear. I’m coming out now because I feel that it’s important that the American people know from a trusted and reliable source, from someone that was there. I spent days on every site of the secure distribution sites in Gaza that are run by the GHF [“Gaza Humanitarian Foundation“], all four sites. I spent days on end at all four of those sites. I spent days on end in an armored vehicle doing the delivery of aid. And the American people need to know what the United States is involved in in Gaza. We’re not bystanders. We are a part of it. U.S. tax dollars are going towards this effort. Americans are on the ground, armed, in Gaza, engaging with Palestinians and involved in things that America needs to know about.
Senator Van Hollen: What specifically do people need to know is happening right now as a result of the GHF [“Gaza Humanitarian Foundation”] operation?
Anthony Aguilar: The American people need to be aware that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation method of aid distribution was designed by design. It is inherently dangerous. It lures Palestinians into active war zones throughout Gaza to get food that they need. Under the U.N. method, there were 400 sites. Now there are only four. All four of those sites are co-located with Israeli positions in active combat zones. That’s not humanitarian. By design, it is inherently dangerous. By execution, it is failing. It failed to launch. It hasn’t achieved success. It is not achieving success now. It has failed. It is failing, and it will not succeed because it’s not run by people that know anything about humanitarian assistance, humanitarian aid, or this type of work. It would be if someone asked me to do brain surgery, I’m educated, but I can’t do that.
Senator Van Hollen: Absolutely. And we’ve seen and heard about these stories of very hungry, starving Palestinians having to crowd around toward these four centers to get food.
Anthony Aguilar: Yes, sir.
Senator Van Hollen: And in the process, have been subject to fire, being shot by IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] soldiers and others. Have you witnessed any of that?
Anthony Aguilar: I have witnessed it on all four locations with my own eyes. I have not only borne witness to it, touched it, felt it, heard it there on the ground right in front of me. I also captured a lot of it on video and on photos. And the proof is undeniable. And the proof is not videos and pictures alone. The proof is also witness, which is me. And I know what I saw. I’m a man of integrity. I’ve served my country, and I’ve proven that, and I can be trusted. So what I saw on numerous occasions are the Israeli Defense Forces firing into the crowds of the Palestinians, firing over their head, firing at their feet, firing into the crowd, not just with rifles or machine guns, but tanks, tank rounds, artillery, mortars, missiles, not because they were combatants or because they were hostile or because they were Hamas, but simply as a means to control the crowd.
Anthony Aguilar: Why I say that the process under GHF is inherently dangerous is because those crowds are the size that the crowds are because of the process of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and how we’re delivering aid. There are only four sites.
Senator Van Hollen: Yeah. Compared to 400.
Anthony Aguilar: Compared to 400. More importantly, no one in Gaza City, in Jabalia, where right now I think it is, everybody can agree, is the most vulnerable population going into starvation and famine. There are no distribution sites from GHF north of the Netzarim Corridor at all. They’re all south of the Netzarim Corridor. No one from Gaza City or north of the Netzarim Corridor can go south of the Netzarim Corridor. So the entire vulnerable population that the world has pulled the alarm on, that is in the time of crisis and on the verge of famine, can’t get to any of the aid. Can’t even get to it, and we’re not taking it to them.
Anthony Aguilar: So in order to reach each of these sites throughout all of the rest of Gaza, central to south Gaza, there are only four sites, and three of them, three of them are all the way in the south, located right in the middle of the IDF’s [Israeli military’s] Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which is an offensive operation, not security, not defense, but an offensive war that these civilians have to walk through. And they get shot. They get shot at by the IDF, and unfortunately, they get shot at by American contractors on the ground.
Senator Van Hollen: And you’ve witnessed this directly.
Anthony Aguilar: I have witnessed it. One of the photos that I took, sir, was this photo here. This young boy, his name is Amir. I know that because he and I talked. This is—I took this photo. This is on—this—this hurts. This—I get a little emotional with this because I—this—this is on Secure Distribution Site One on the 27th of May, the second day we had done distribution. At this point, the second-in-charge of the entire contract resigned in protest based on how distribution went on the 26th of May. On Day One, he notified the leadership. He said, “I can’t be a part of this anymore.”
We continued.
Anthony Aguilar: This young man on this site, as you can see, he doesn’t have a box. He’s carrying things that he found on the ground because on the sites, it became a free-for-all. It became a survival of the fittest. The Gaza Olympics, Hunger Games—
Senator Van Hollen: Hunger Games.
Anthony Aguilar: Dystopian to the tenth degree. It’s horrible. There was no box for this young man. So he picked up some things that he found on the ground, and he was so thankful for even that. And he walked up to me and he extended his hand, and I beckoned for him to come forward, and he grabbed my hand, and he kissed my hand and he said, “Shukran, shukran,” and he was sincere. He was crying. He walked eight kilometers to get there. No shoes. Yeah. Probably hasn’t eaten in days. So for anybody that says that the people of Gaza are not starving, I beg to differ. I’ve seen different. This young hand. Then he held my hand and he kissed it, and I knelt down to look at him in the face so I can let him know that, you know, people care. You’re not alone. People care. And he set down his bags and he put his hands on my face and he kissed me.
Anthony Aguilar: And he looked at me and he said, “Shukran.” And I was like, “You’re welcome.” And he says, “Thank you.” And he picked up his bags and he went back to join this group. This was the last remaining group of people on the site that were picking up remnants of aid. And he left through the exit of Site Number One. The exit of Site Number One goes north to the Morag Corridor, which is a combat area, a fighting area.
Senator Van Hollen: Yeah.
Anthony Aguilar: The IDF [Israeli military] opened up with machine gun fire into the crowd to get them to leave faster, to get them to hurry. Shooting at their feet, shooting over their head, shooting into the berm. There’s video of this. It’s been verified. That’s the first time I had experienced such use of force against… So I didn’t know what was going on because he had walked through the berm, and I heard the shooting. So I ran up to the berm to look, and there were dead Palestinians. He was one of them.
Senator Van Hollen: Oh my God. So the boy who just kissed you?
Anthony Aguilar: Who said thank you?
Senator Van Hollen: Yeah.
Anthony Aguilar: Who wasn’t a threat? The people that we promised that we’re going to bring food to, that we’re going to feed. Not only are we not feeding them adequately, we’re not providing enough. Right now, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has achieved 82 million meals delivered into Gaza. They’ve been doing that for over 50, excuse me, as of today, 60 days of distribution. So at the rate of what the U.N. was doing, they are operating at a performance rate of 3%.
Senator Van Hollen: 3%?
Anthony Aguilar: Not 3% below, delivered to the… Yeah. 3% period. If the amount of aid that the U.N. was delivering—500 to 600 trucks a day, let’s just say 500 trucks a day is the mark—UG Solutions, SRS, GHF are delivering 18 trucks a day on average.
Senator Van Hollen: We’re starving people at just four sites.
Anthony Aguilar: At just four sites. And in order to get to it, the people getting to it have to endure gunfire, have to endure an 8 to 12 kilometer walk one way to get there. And then after they receive aid from the site, they can’t go back home because once you’re west of the Magan Oz Corridor or north of the Morag Corridor, between the coastal corridor, you can’t leave. So all of these people, if you’re in Khan Yunis and you head south to get aid because Site Number Four is not open that day, which is common—they’re not all open. So on any given day, there’s only one or two open. So if they can’t get aid at Site Four and they want to go down south to get Site One, they then are stuck down there. They’re displaced. They can’t go home. They go to the Nasser Camp or they go to the Milwaukee Refugee Camp. They can’t go home.
Anthony Aguilar: So the United States, not just UG Solutions, not just Safe Reach Solutions, not just the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the United States of America is complicit in setting mouse traps with cheese. The food is the bait to bring them down and then displace them from the north.
Senator Van Hollen: So this is, in your view, a big part of the displacement strategy that’s going on right now.
Anthony Aguilar: It is the displacement strategy. Yeah, it is how it’s being done. Now, did GHF or SRS or UG Solutions sign up to do that? I don’t believe so. But even after the first day of being there, it doesn’t—you don’t have to be Clausewitz to figure out that if we’re supposed to be distributing humanitarian aid, why aren’t we building aid sites where the need is? If everybody’s north, why are we building sites in the south? How do they get here? Oh, well, they walk. Oh, so they displace from where they live to come here to get food. And do they get to go back? No. So, we’re displacing people. That’s just a fact. Yeah. And we’re a part of it. The United States government, through its $30 million to the State Department to GHF, the American taxpayer, Americans that are on the ground with guns, we are complicit in the displacement of a population of people, innocent, starving people who we say, “We’re here to feed you. Come and get some food.” And we use it as bait. And most of them don’t survive.
Senator Van Hollen: Yeah. That’s been horrible reading about what’s happening. I see you have some other things here, video. Is there anything else you want to—
Anthony Aguilar: Well, just, so just a couple things here I wanted to show you. So this young boy I talked to him. So this is your typical Palestinian when they reach the site, how thankful they are. They’re not a threat. This gentleman here gave me the peace sign, and then he kissed at me and he said thank you. This young boy right here, as I told you, this young boy on Site Number Two, this young boy is picking up noodles with his bare hands because there were no boxes of aid. So, with his right hand, he’s picking up noodles that he’s then shifting out to put in his backpack because that’s all he got. His face is red and flushed because he got pepper-sprayed in the face by a UG contractor.
Senator Van Hollen: You witnessed that?
Anthony Aguilar: Witnessed it. Saw it. That’s why I took the picture. Yeah. This young girl, happy to be there. Some of us on our—with our own money—purchased cookies for the kids because the boxes just have rice, flour, fava beans, nothing that you can actually eat until you cook it.
Senator Van Hollen: Yeah.
Anthony Aguilar: So, we bought cookies for the kids. This girl has a package of cookies. She—these packages are a pack of packages, and she took the whole thing for me and I was like, “Okay.” She took it and then opened it and was handing it out to other children. These are the Palestinians. These are the people of Gaza. These are—this isn’t Hamas. This isn’t a bad guy. This is—I—this could be my daughter.
Senator Van Hollen: Yeah.
Anthony Aguilar: These are—these aren’t the criminals. This man here picking up a bag of flour. I took this photo. He’s thanking me. Not a threat. This young girl here, this is at Site Number Four, distribution site four. Yeah. She’s—this is who we’re starving. These people. Her—
Senator Van Hollen: Yeah.
Anthony Aguilar: That could be my neighbor.
Senator Van Hollen: Yeah.
Anthony Aguilar: This young boy right here, I mean, he even looks like my son. This could be my son. Thankful, happy. And this young boy didn’t get any aid because by the time he got there, everything was gone. He was happy just for the fact, the idea that we were there to help. This is who we’re starving. This is who’s dying. This young boy, this is on Site Number One early in the morning, happy to be there. He got one box. Him and his family got a box. Just happy. Never at any time on all four distribution sites, at distributions through morning, afternoon, night, throughout the night, during the day, did I ever witness a threat, hostility, even anything close to hostility ever in the whole group.
Senator Van Hollen: Yeah.
Anthony Aguilar: Another picture of a young boy just thankful.
Senator Van Hollen: So absolutely no reason for anybody to be shooting at them.
Anthony Aguilar: No reason. This woman here, this is Site One. She was hit in the head with a piece of shrapnel from a stun grenade that was thrown by a UG Solutions contractor. It hit her in the head and knocked her unconscious. Before she left that site, I was hit with it also.
Senator Van Hollen: You were hit?
Anthony Aguilar: With a piece of the stun grenade. I had—I got stitches in my arm from it. I was wounded from it. And this gentleman that held me up off the ground was a Palestinian man. The man that’s here covering his face because the stun grenades have—have—um, tear gas in them. So when they explode, not only do they fire these pellets, they also dispense tear gas. And the gentleman helped me up, and then he went here to help the woman in black, help the woman in red onto the cart. I went up to thank him and I said, “Thank you.” And I placed my hand on her, motionless, lifeless. Unfortunately, throughout my life and my military career in war, I have—I have touched and been next to a lot of dead people.
Senator Van Hollen: Yeah.
Anthony Aguilar: I would raise my right hand in a court of law and attest to the fact that she was dead. Not from the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces], not from starvation, not from trampling because Hamas incited a stampede. We killed her. That’s not the American way. This man here, this was on Site Number One. Again, early in the morning, he was on the ground picking up noodles. A UG contractor yelled at him and said, “Get out of here.” He doesn’t speak English. We don’t speak Arabic. We only had one translator per site for thousands of people. So, that’s how we spent money. We spent money on a lot of guns and one translator. This man was then sprayed in the face with pepper spray, and he was immobilized. This young man, this worker here, is a local Palestinian worker who’s dumping water on his face. And that wasn’t done by the IDF. That wasn’t done by Hamas. That was done by an American contractor who is there in a very complex and complicated environment trying to do the best he or she can with no rules of engagement, no standard operating procedures, no escalation of force procedures. None of this has been provided. And all of us, sir, are in Gaza. We are in Israel on a tourist visa.
Senator Van Hollen: Unbelievable. We are in the country of Israel, in Gaza, carrying weapons, tourist visa, and doing this.
Anthony Aguilar: Tourist visa, and doing this, and doing this. And we are there on a tourist visa. If my grandmother wanted to go visit Jerusalem, she would go into Israel the same way that I did as a contractor with a gun.
Senator Van Hollen: Unbelievable. So, who is giving the orders for all the GHF operations?
Anthony Aguilar: Great question, sir. I was told very explicitly, directly to my face, that our client is the IDF [Israeli military].
Senator Van Hollen: Your client is the IDF.
Anthony Aguilar: Our client is the IDF. And this came out in a discussion once where I was in the control room. I was on control room duty that day. We had shifted responsibilities on a rotational basis. So I was in there that day with the radio observing Site Number Two distribution. A Palestinian man had picked up some children to let them step on his shoulders to get onto a berm because they were being crushed in the crowd. Site Two is very small, the smallest of all four sites. And these children were being crushed, and he picked them up there and put them up on the berm. And the Israeli Defense Forces liaison officer in the main control center with us comes up to the screen that I’m watching and he says, “Tell your men to get them down.” I was like, “We got this under control.” I was like, “I know they—-they know what they’re doing.” “Nope. You know, they’re children. Let’s calm down.” “Get them down now or I will.”
Anthony Aguilar: Well, there’s no IDF on the site. So, I didn’t take it as much more than just being, you know, bombastic and like, “Okay, like, hey, we got this.” He leaves and goes to his desk in the operation center, and he gets on the radio and he speaks something on the radio. It was in Hebrew. I don’t speak Hebrew. One of the contractors that was there was American that did speak Hebrew, and he notifies me. He said, “Hey, he just told the snipers at the IDF position, because the Site Number Two is co-located with an Israeli base, he said, “He just told the snipers to take these kids out.” I was like, “On the radio?” He’s like, “Yeah.” This lieutenant colonel then comes back up and he says, “Get them down.” And I look at him and I say, “Did you just call on the radio and tell your men to shoot them?” He said, “I’m going to take care of this if you don’t.” I said, “You are not going to shoot. You are not going to shoot children. You’re also not going to shoot because if your men miss, you’re going to hit others. You’re not going to shoot.”
Anthony Aguilar: Thank God we didn’t come to the conclusion of figuring out whether he would or not because the children jumped down and ran off of the site. They didn’t want to be there. They were unarmed. They didn’t have shoes. One wasn’t even wearing a shirt. They were starving. The chief operations officer for Safe Reach Solutions, our higher headquarters, so to speak, in the contract, beckoned me outside with him, and he looked at me in the face and he said, “Never say no to the client.” And I asked him, I was like, “I didn’t know the client was in there. Who’s here? Did Johnny Moore come to visit?” Right? And he said, “No, the IDF.” I was like, “The IDF are our client?” He said, “Yes, we work for them.” A light bulb went off in my head because up until that point, every day at 11:00, we’d have an operations meeting where the IDF—not KATT, not the U.N., not GHF—-the IDF would give us very clear and explicit instructions. “This is the site you will deliver to. This is how much aid you will deliver. This is how you will deliver it. This is the time you will deliver it. This is—this is how many trucks will go in.” They gave us explicit, and we took our marching orders from them. Up until that point, I just thought maybe that was just a process. But then I realized that, oh, according to Safe Reach Solutions, the prime contract, we work for the IDF, inherently a combatant, a belligerent in a war. Is Israel at war with Hamas? Absolutely. Are they combatants? Absolutely. Humanitarian aid should not be distributed through a humanitarian assistance mechanism that is controlled by a combatant in a war. It is inherently inhumane. It is inherently un-American. And if Americans knew that, I don’t think they’d put up with it.
Senator Van Hollen: I think you’re right. We talked earlier about how you’ve been involved in many combat situations on behalf of the United States. Have you ever seen a situation like you witnessed here in Gaza?
Anthony Aguilar: In 25 years of serving in the army, sir, to include the fight against ISIS, who I would say is a pretty barbaric enemy, never in 25 years have I witnessed or been a part of what I saw in Gaza, the death, the destruction, the injustice, the—-more so—-the use of escalation of force against an unarmed population of civilians. None of them were armed. They’re starving. They’re women. They’re children. They’re old men. They’re handicapped. They’re human beings. Never in my entire military career, and everywhere I’ve been, in situations from low intensity to high intensity, have I ever witnessed the barbaric use of force against an unarmed civilian population ever. And I hope I never witness something like that again.
Senator Van Hollen: Well, I think your testimony is going to be important to make sure that the American people know what’s happening.
Anthony Aguilar: Yes, sir.
“Gaza 48,” Digital, Midjourney, 2025.
Senator Van Hollen: Know how their tax dollars are being used. And I want to again thank you for your service in the U.S. military.
Anthony Aguilar: Yes, sir.
Senator Van Hollen: That requires bravery. It also requires courage to come out and talk about something you’re witnessing here. Is there anything else that you want to say?
Anthony Aguilar: I appreciate your time, sir. I thank you for your service to our country. And as you said, that’s my objective in this: to inform the American people of what the truth is.
Senator Van Hollen: Yeah.
Anthony Aguilar: I have no agenda in this. I’m not in this for some greater cause. I recently retired from the military, very happy being a stay-at-home dad and making breakfast for my family and taking my son to school and being a dad. I have no aims or objective in this other than one, that the American people know the truth. Two, I swore an oath to this country, and that oath didn’t get hung up with my uniform on the 1st of March. The Constitution is founded in values. This is not in line with American values, and Americans need to know that, sir. They do.
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